International News

SoftBank mulls stake sale in M&A adviser Raine Group

  Bloomberg SoftBank Group Corp is considering selling its stake in the holding company of Raine Group, the merchant bank that’s advised on some of the Japanese company’s biggest deals, people familiar with the matter said. The potential stake sale would fit into SoftBank’s retrenchment from a deal-hungry technology conglomerate to one more focused on smaller investments, according to the ...

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Disney to cut 7,000 jobs as Bob Iger seeks $5.5 billion in savings

Bloomberg Walt Disney Co. shares rose as much as 7% in early trading after Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger announced plans for a dramatic restructuring of the world’s largest entertainment company, including 7,000 job cuts and $5.5 billion in cost savings. The reductions include plans to cut $3 billion from its budget for movies and TV shows and the rest ...

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German inflation slows to five-month low on energy aid

  Bloomberg German inflation slowed in January to the lowest level in five months thanks to further government aid to ease the burden on households from soaring energy costs. Consumer-price growth eased to 9.2% from 9.6% in December, Germany’s statistics agency said Thursday. Destatis had postponed the data’s scheduled release last week due to processing problems. That delay forced Eurostat ...

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US jobless claims pick up for the first time in six weeks

  Bloomberg Applications for US unemployment benefits rose for the first time in six weeks but remained historically low, underscoring the resilience of the job market despite mounting economic uncertainty. Initial unemployment claims rose by 13,000 to 196,000 in the week ended Feb. 4, Labor Department data showed Thursday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for ...

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UK tax rate deters pharma investment

  Bloomberg AstraZeneca Plc said it chose Ireland for a new manufacturing facility instead of the UK because of punitive tax rates, raising fresh fears over Britain’s attractiveness to Big Pharma. The drugmaker initially wanted to make the $360 million investment in the UK, but “the tax rate was discouraging,” Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot said in a briefing with ...

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UK property surveyors say buyers disappearing after rate rise

  Bloomberg UK property surveyors said the housing market settled further into hibernation in January as buyer inquiries, agreed sales and new instructions to sell all fell again. The lackluster activity, driven by higher interest rates and the tightest cost-of-living squeeze in generations, translated into a further drop in prices at the start of the year, the Royal Institution of ...

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Maersk sees global trade contracting 2.5% in 2023

Bloomberg A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, a bellwether for global trade, said “muted” economic growth is set to push the world’s container shipping volumes down by as much as 2.5% this year. The shipping market has normalized after two years of exceptionally high freight rates, when supply snarls and and a shortage of vessels allowed Maersk and its peers to charge higher ...

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Elon Musk prepares Tesla ‘master plan’ for March 1 investor day

Bloomberg Tesla Inc. will present a third version of Elon Musk’s “master plan” next month, almost a full year after the chief executive officer said he was working on a next edition. The electric-car maker will outline “the path to a fully sustainable energy future for Earth” during its March 1 investor day, Musk tweeted. Tesla has already said its ...

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UK inflation-adjusted pay lags France and Germany, OECD says

  Bloomberg The UK was the only European country in the Group of Seven nations where real incomes adjusted for inflation fell in the third quarter of last year, according to the OECD. Rampant inflation was to blame for continuing slide in household spending power, the Paris-based organization said, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government and the Bank ...

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Dublin offices just 10% occupied on Fridays

  Bloomberg Average occupancy levels at many Dublin offices have fallen to 10% or lower on Mondays and Fridays as the majority of employees opt to work from home, according to a survey. Wednesday is the most popular day among workers to be in the office with employers reporting average occupancy rates of 61% to 70%, a survey of 500 ...

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